


How to Beat Undertale with Your Eyes Closed (Or Nonfunctional)

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Blindness, Disabilities, Gen, Navigating by Sound, Nonfiction, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2020-09-25 05:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20371486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: A hypothetical approach on how to adapt Undertale for blind people.





	How to Beat Undertale with Your Eyes Closed (Or Nonfunctional)

_(Note: I have no experience engineering video games for the blind. This is all hypothetical.)_

In one of the patches for _Undertale_, Toby Fox modified the color of blue attacks so they would be easier to distinguish for color-blind people.

But what about…actual blind people?

* * *

(Mock-up for the Flowey encounter in “Blind Undertale”)

When people say, “I could beat it with my eyes closed”, sometimes that’s actually possible. Some games have sound design so sophisticated even blind people can beat them. This is true even for some games not made specifically for the blind, such as _Super Mario 64_ or _The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time_.

For the latter, a blind man named Terry Garrett didn’t exactly need the game itself to be modified. He navigated based on sound cues, using stereo loudspeakers to know where they were coming from, and set up multiple save states to try again faster after failing (such as by falling).

Relative to _Ocarina of Time_ or even the more comparable _Pokémon Emerald_, _Undertale_ is rather quiet: it applies sound effects much less, and characters rarely have a walking noise. So some modification is necessary.

* * *

**Narration and Dialogue**

**Technical Aspects**

Terry Garrett’s friends and family sat with him while playing _Ocarina of Time_ and helped him by describing what objects looked like. _Undertale_’s extensive narration makes this less necessary…if there’s some way for the blind person to hear it.

The best solution, which even non-blind players would gush over, is making the game fully voice-acted. However, that would be very expensive and make game downloads take a long time. Fortunately, there’s an alternative: screen readers.

Screen readers read text on a screen aloud using a synthetic voice (think Vocaloid). Screen readers are how blind people use the Internet, and so the solution would be easiest to use for the computer version of _Undertale_.

_Undertale_ has lots of characters which should be distinguished from each other, and they speak at different rates at different points in the game. One solution is creating a program that co-opts a pre-existng screen reader (e.g., JAWS) to customize in-built voices to match different characters and adjust the speaking rate as needed.

Alternatively, a custom screen-reader/dialogue-producer could be added into the files of a “Blind Undertale” download, which doesn’t depend on preexisting voices in the player’s computer.

**Gameplay Aspects**

Once there’s a way of providing narration, the narration could describe the environment. At spots where there’s something interesting that can’t be conveyed through sound, such as something quiet in the distance, a “hmm?” sound could pop up, and the player could then press a button to hear a description. (Potentially, this would support NarraChara theory, since it would be voiced.)

Once the Papyrus hangout is completed, Papyrus and/or Undyne could help in giving details about an area or tips on how to navigate in it. (The Papyrus calls are occasionally helpful, after all.) Potentially, Papyrus could have extra dialogue with hints on navigation. His calls could even be separated into “Where to Go” (navigation tips) and “Interesting Things” (non-navigation/little environmental description value) categories in the menu.

* * *

**Navigation by Sound**

**Environmental Cues**

Terry Garrett finds retro two-dimensional games impossible to play, for they don’t have enough sound cues.   
Yet, in principle a retro two-dimensional game would be easier to adjust for blind people, as it’s simpler than a 3D world. In principle Undertale’s overworld (underworld?) would be especially easy to navigate, since the Underground follows a largely linear path up and to the right and has fairly few falling hazards a blind person would find hard to avoid.

When Terry Garrett needs orientation, he listens carefully for “sound landmarks” such as running water or footsteps shifting from grass to earth. Undertale could similarly have such sound landmarks, and, to make it even easier, an indication one is on the most direct path. (Note that the linear design of Snowdin Town naturally funnels players to the most important location: Papyrus’s house.)

Undertale, conveniently, already has noises that could be used for orientation: it just doesn’t use them much.  
For example, Sans makes a “crunching through snow” sound effects when he sneaks up on Frisk in Snowdin Forest. Recycling this sound effect would indicate one is in Snowdin, or at least in Snowdin forest or off the most direct path through the area.   
Using different sound effects for the most direct path versus going off the path would make this even easier, particularly if a similar effect for the most direct path is used in each area.

**Proximity Sounds/Character Sounds**

The game could provide a particular sound when there’s something to interact with nearby. Giving a sound for people versus objects would help distinguish the environment. Providing distinctive sounds when a specific, important character is nearby would help people when they need to go to a very specific spot and interact with someone to advance the plot. (e.g., talk to Toriel in her reading chair, talk to Papyrus in front of his house for his hangout)

Giving them all a distinct “hmm?” or “uh?” sound could work, as would playing their themes faintly or giving each a distinctive sound effect. (e.g., a bone-rattling noise for Papyrus)

**Puzzles**

Puzzles would be more difficult to do, particularly if they require good timing. (e.g., the Hotland steam vent puzzles) Some puzzles would be very difficult or impossible to do by environmental sound cues alone, and so require a slight software change or modification into something easier.

For example, some of the Hotland puzzles have arrows indicating where it sends Frisk, and the player waits until the arrow faces the desired direction before walking onto it. A software change could say, **“The arrow is facing left. Jump? Yes / No”** when walking on it.

* * *

**Conclusion**

But overworld navigation is just the easy part. The hardest parts are the battle system, which would require precise movements and excellent timing if unmodified, and potential custom hardware to achieve this end. These, depending on interest, shall be the topic of future posts.


End file.
